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Earlier this month the University of California, Berkeley posted
a job on its career board for a crowdfunding
project manager. The post advertised for a crowdfunding expert to
help launch and manage a new campus-wide crowdfunding platform
under development and guide users to execute successful
fundraising campaigns.

More individuals and organizations are moving away from the
well-known third-party crowdfunding platforms and are opting to
host their perk- or donation-based fundraising campaigns on their
own websites. Widely available tools (called white-label
crowdfunding software) allow these self-hosted campaigns to
thrive. Projects using this independent approach for raising
capital have included Roberts Space Industries’ Star Citizen game (which raised $48
million), Lockitron ($2.2 million) and Tile ($2.6 million).

While the self-serve approach has downsides, such as no
cross-pollination of backers from other campaigns, the benefits
of using these plug-and play-white-label options are increasing
as the technology solutions proliferate and it becomes easier to
reach a crowd via pay-per click advertising and
Facebook-sponsored posts.

These posts usually appear in a Facebook feed as an offer to
“preorder” a cool consumer product. When users click on the ad,
they are often led back to a “self-serve” crowdfunding campaign
embedded on the offering company's website. Combining a
self-hosted campaign with sponsored posts on Facebook has proved
to be an effective approach for entrepreneurs wishing to reach
backers beyond their own networks.

Saving the platform fee of 4 percent to 9 percent of the
monies raised

Setting and being able to adjust the duration of the
fundraising

Controlling the branding

Keeping the traffic on the company website

Building a pool of backers with whom the company can be in
direct contact

The self-serve approach works best when the organization or
individual has an existing crowd to be leveraged (followers,
members, customers, students and alumni) or if the company or
organization is prepared to build one through marketing.

When selecting a white-label solution, compare criteria such as
costs (set-up expenses, commission-based licenses or one-time
fees), feature sets, degree of customization allowed and support
offered. Some solutions can have the crowdfunding proposition up
and running in 30 minutes or less. A handful of the growing
number of white-label options include Crowdtilt, Launcht and Crowd Engine.

You Tube announced in May that it is adding a crowdfunding feature, allowing video
creators to raise money from fans directly on the site. This
feature will allow artists to gain support for their CDs or
tours directly from fans without having to run a separate
campaign on a traditional crowdfunding platform. Although
ideal for musicians, this new feature can be tapped by
entrepreneurs and inventors to pitch backers as well.

YouTube rival Vimeo offers its own benefits for crowdfunders.
Earlier this year Vimeo established a $500,000 kitty to
support crowdfunded filmmakers. Filmmakers with successful
campaigns of at least $10,000 (raised on either Kickstarter,
Seed&Spark or Indiegogo) have the opportunity to obtain
money and marketing support -- as well as a Vimeo Pro account
-- in exchange for an exclusive digital-distribution window
through Vimeo On Demand.

Plus campaign support is arising via Linkedin crowdfunding
forums, free meetups and webinars, campaign managers for hire and
PR companies with experience in marketing crowdfunding campaigns.
As the crowdfunding industry grows, an ecosystem is offering
entrepreneurs a variety of new ways to gain the most out of their
funding campaigns.